Chillin'

La Niña clearly chilling the equatorial Pacific

I heard from a friend in the Foothills this morning. she said: "It was 108° on Thursday, this morning I had to light a fire in the woodstove, it is 58°...what????????????" I replied: "Say hello to La Niña!" A fifty degree swing qualifies as dramatic, no? Truckee's low Thursday was 33°, the State Low for California.

It was downright chilly in the Inland Valley this morning, and it cooled right off this evening.My SF Giants have cooled off too. Their starting pitchers have suddenly lost their magic. This weekend's Home Stand against the Diamondbacks has been real David vs Goliath...where the Giants are David, and can't find their stones! (Yes...pun intended, sorry!) Giants' starters got shelled early and hard, and the Giants offense couldn't bridge the big gaps...ouch!

There's a chance of snowfall  overnight Saturday in the Tahoe Sierra and North, and some flurries down to 7500ft were reported in Lassen County Saturday afternoon. The Reno AFD says the snowlevel will rise to 9500ft after the cold front moves through. The NWS forecasters attribute the low snowlevel to the extremely dry air mass in place now. The passing of the front will mix the atmosphere enough to raise the freezing level. Some rainfall was recorded Saturday in Lassen, Sierra and Washoe Counties.

Things do seem to be cooling off all across our world. I see there was a huge late season blizzard in Australia's Snowy Mountains that forced the cancellation of a big four-day snowboard event. The hosting resort,  Falls Creek Resort reported the storm as "their biggest dump since 1992".

Over the past week or so, I've seen news of early snow in Colorado, Montana, Russia, and Greenland...and the Russian snow was actual accumulation...measurable accumulation that hung around for a day or two!

In the Southern Hemisphere, a record cold snap in July dropped the mercury so low that millions of fish, reptiles, river dolphins, thousands of cattle, and even penguins perished along with many people.

Ocean temperatures continue their downward slide across the planet, though there's sill a warm pool of water off the Cape Verde Islands spawning some Tropical Storms in the Atlantic. Hurricane Danielle is still working her way NW in the Mid-Atlantic, and forecasts have Tropical Storm Earl becoming a hurricane before skirting the Caribbean Sea and heading North. If Earl runs the forecast track, the Carolinas and Virginia are going to get deluged next week. Earl could just as likely follow Danielle's track and never make landfall anywhere.

Meteorology aside, Summer is coming to an end soon. I haven't seen the change in the light yet, though it's just three weeks until the Reno National Championship Air Races,  where I traditionally do see my first Autumnal Light. Labor Day and the taking stock of my Summer are a week away. I feel like I should get ready for Winter earlier than I have these past few years. With cold temps almost guaranteed by La Niña, Winter 10/11 has half the recipe for heavy snows and a bountiful Water Year already in hand. California needs heavy winters for a few more years...at least until the Sacramento Pols don't have "The Drought" to beat the Peripheral Canal drums with. A few more wet years will go the extra mile to help Salmon and Striped Bass, and all of California's parched Central Valley Farmers.